It has been couple of months since we have had the fire in part of our main reserve and lion reserve, however the grass has been growing very quickly and it’s already very high, but that does not stop us from viewing our game and smaller creature like dung beetles and sorts of insects.

I Isaiah remember one early morning drive at 05H30; we went out to our lion reserve, we went to the area ( Rooiberg Fence) where we had in previous afternoon established that they had been in the area we reached this area to establish which direction did they take from there, we carried on with the Rooiberg fence where we picked up the tracks heading east towards our dam (Lake Kyle Dam) and then disappeared into the bushes, we carried on to the dam and there was nothing.

We then drove towards 100 hectares area and we could not pick up anything, we stayed inside the reserve until 07H45 and decided that we extend our drive with another one hour. We then back tracked to where we lost the tracks and started looking carefully and even switched off the vehicle to listen if we could hear anything. Then in a few moments we heard the sound of a wildebeest, which sounded like it was caught by the lions and it was like one km from where we were, we quickly went in that direction and we found the lions in the plain already feeding on the wildebeest, this happened so quickly they had and killed and were already feeding on the wildebeest. Eish we missed out on what could have been the first ever lion kill that I Isaiah was going to witness.

It was good to hear them growling at each other and not willing to give each other a chance to get a bigger piece of meat, you could see that they very hungry as females were also fighting to get a piece of the meat. They couldn’t wait for the males to eat first. We stayed there for half an hour and we decided to go back to the lodge for the breakfast. (What an awesome experience)

Photo taken by Isaiah Banda

As expected leopard activity has increased considerably in the last month. The big Elandsberg male was sighted in the company of a young adult female on Rhino neck which bodes well for the chance of some sightings of cubs later in the season. Other than that we had scattered sightings all over the Modjadji area from Nyati dam through to the Elephant dam area.

What is remarkable is that we have been seeing more tortoises in these last two months than any of the preceding years. I'm certain we can attribute this to the fact that we are not actively using liberal control burning on the Reserve as much, which has most probably decreased the mortality rate significantly. Most of the ones we are seeing are small or medium sized which hopefully proves my theory. What is special though is that the rangers were treated to sighting of a very dignified old male specimen of leopard tortoise at Gwharrie corner, and he was huge! We surmised that it was one of the original tortoises released in the early 80's.

Elephants try to mate at Mabula Game Reserve

February month have been a good month on all the animals including the leopard, although we have not seen them yet, the good thing is that we have spotted some of leopard kills during this month on our reserve. This is a good sign to show that they are utilising our reserve more often, in our reserve is very difficult to spot the leopard as we don’t do off road due to sour veldt, if we allow off-road we will be destroying our reserve as it will take long time to recover. Our buffaloes have been utilising the southern side of the reserve at Danie Joubert area that’s where we had the fire so the grass is very short and with high nutrients and Rhinos roaming all over the reserve all in good condition. One of our rangers Kalie have been very lucky to have the sighting of the Honey Badgers of which is also difficult to spot, although he was not lucky enough to take a photo of them.

If you are looking for place to come enjoy with family or friends, then don’t look too far Mabula is the perfect holiday destination for you.

Our rangers will be looking forward in welcoming you soon.

From myself Isaiah and the Wildlife team. Laurie Roux
Wildlife Services Manager
Email: wls@lodge.mabula.co.za

[A] Private Bag X1644, Bela Bela, 0480, Limpopo Province, South Africa
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